


Here at the End of the World

by enigma731



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Age of Ultron, Community: be_compromised, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Psychological Trauma, dark!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:16:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint saw Natasha before, of course, when she slipped into the clearing like yet another memory of the ghosts he carries with him now, a stinging brand over his heart. But he didn’t allow himself to look any closer then, didn’t allow himself to hope. An Age of Ultron fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/gifts).



> I choose not to use specific warnings, but this fic features pretty dark themes and events compliant with the Age of Ultron event canon. If you have questions, feel free to ask. 
> 
> If you haven't read the comics, you should still be able to read this fic. Just treat it like a post-apocalyptic AU.
> 
> Thank you to [SugarFey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarFey) for beta, to [SidheRa](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SidheRa) for helping me get my 616 thoughts and timeline straight, and to [samalander](http://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander) for cheerleading.

Clint is in the belly of the S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker, scavenging for supplies, when Natasha finds him. She slips in like the place isn’t a heavily-guarded secret, and later he won’t even wonder how she’s managed to do it, because of course she has. 

He feels her presence without hearing or seeing her. If there’s one advantage to the apocalypse, it’s that his senses are the sharpest they’ve ever been, his reflexes always hanging on the razor edge of fight or flight. 

He flies to his feet, his bow in his hand, arrow nocked, string singing softly with tension before he recognizes Natasha. Her posture is more familiar than anything else, the line of her body in the dim light telling him that she’s on her guard too. He can’t see her face, masked by shadow and the long curtain of her hair, but even her silhouette is enough to make his heart turn over and his throat grow traitorously tight. He saw her before, of course, when she slipped into the clearing like yet another memory of the ghosts he carries with him now, a stinging brand over his heart. But he didn’t allow himself to look any closer then, didn’t allow himself to hope.

“You’re dead,” says Clint. He doesn’t put down his bow. This world has more than enough cruel tricks up its sleeve to erase the implicit trust he’d have in her under any other circumstances. 

Natasha laughs, a hollow, silvery sound that aches deep in his chest. “Like I’d get that lucky.” 

She takes a few steps toward him—a test, he thinks, or perhaps a challenge. He’s still got his bow leveled at her, could kill her in an instant at this range. The past few weeks of war have driven him to do countless unthinkable things, but even here he knows he’ll never be able to shoot Natasha. If it isn’t her, if this is a hallucination or a trap, then he’d rather die at the hands of an impostor. He curses under his breath as he lowers his weapon, knowing without question that she’s heard both. 

“You always did have too much faith,” she says, almost smugly.

“Yeah, well, I’m still alive,” Clint snaps, feeling irrationally defensive.

“Right,” Natasha scoffs. “That’s the game, isn’t it? Stay alive long enough to watch the world die. Congratulations, we both win a prize.” 

For a moment he thinks about offering her some of the same disappointed rhetoric he gave the others back in New York, considers scolding her for this sort of resignation. He’s never heard her talk like this, not through a dozen circles of hell and back.

But then she closes the rest of the distance between them, her hands resting along the curved skeleton of his bow and even in the shadows, he can see her face. The right side of it is hardened and twisted by fresh scars, her eye swollen shut and the corner of her lips drawn up into a permanent crooked sneer, like the mouth of a corpse. Clint can’t help it; he flinches visibly as his stomach turns over, imagining what unspeakable horror it must have taken to do this to her.

She smirks, looking perversely victorious at his reaction. “Yes. Only monsters survive these days.”

* * *

Clint can’t sleep, and he’s pretty sure he isn’t going to live long enough to really need it anymore, so when he finishes his shift keeping guard for the rest of the group around the dying campfire, he slips back into the bunker. It’s eerie in the dark, the only illumination coming from decades-old emergency lights that still shine on some of the equipment. The hum of electricity is unnerving; he half expects to be attacked by the machines at any moment.

He isn’t sure what he’s doing here, but he finds himself searching through the abandoned space, desperate for signs of other human life. He stops when he comes to a room filled with desks. Standing on the corner of one is a framed wedding photo of a smiling couple, the glass cracked and distorting the face of the woman beneath it. 

“You’re not supposed to be in here alone,” Natasha’s voice comes from behind him, and Clint jumps so hard he smacks an elbow on the wall, hissing in pain.

“Yeah, well I’m not alone, am I?” he shoots back. “Not with you haunting me.”

She says nothing, just fixes him with a gaze that seems no less intense for the fact that she only has one good eye. For a moment Clint tries to wait her out, thinks that if he stays quiet long enough she’ll either leave or tell him the real reason why she’s followed him here. But he’s underestimating her tenacity as usual, and his own longing for anything familiar. He straightens and turns to look at her, forcing himself not to react to the sight of her scars this time.

“What happened to you?” he asks finally, unable to help it.

“The world ended,” says Natasha. “I got in the way.” 

“You weren’t there,” says Clint, and suddenly it’s getting difficult to speak past the parched tightness in his throat, the walls of the room feeling uncomfortably close. “In New York. We kept looking for survivors and you weren’t there and I was so sure—“

Natasha doesn’t let him finish, doesn’t let him speak the assumption of her death into reality. She’s a flurry of motion in the dark, fluid grace like a shadow, and the next thing he knows she’s got him pressed against the wall.

It’s then that the reality crashes over him, that she’s alive, that she’s _here_ , that he hasn’t yet lost everyone he loves. She doesn’t give him a chance to think any further—time to feel isn’t a luxury they have anymore. Instead she lunges forward to kiss him, one hand at the back of his neck, the other already toying with his belt buckle. Clint groans into her mouth, clutching at her shoulders for a moment like she might be able to save him, might be able to take him away from the nightmare mere survival’s become. 

“Please,” she breathes against his ear, an uncharacteristically needy sound that’s exactly how he feels. 

He nods once, reaching to undo the button on her jeans as she gets his belt and zipper undone. His entire body jerks when her fingers wrap around his cock, stroking him with an efficiency that’s almost cold. But it’s been weeks since he’s had anything resembling real human contact and he’s always been hopeless for her anyway; he’s hard almost instantly, rocking his hips forward into her palm with a breathy grunt that earns him a feral grin. Natasha shoves his pants down to the knee before shedding her own. She takes no time for anything else, just wraps her legs around his waist and allows him to lift and turn her so that her back is to the wall now. 

She kisses him again as he thrusts into her and for one blissful moment the slick wet heat of her body feels like salvation. Clint closes his eyes as he fucks her, letting the sheer intensity of sensation drown out reality, temporarily erase the images of death and destruction he sees every night on the edge of sleep. He’s been starving for this—for her—in ways that have precious little to do with the apocalypse, and it isn’t long before he’s close to the edge, the first ripples of climax beginning. He doesn’t think she’s there yet, though, so he forces himself to open his eyes and give up the illusion where they’re both still whole. 

It’s then that he realizes she’s crying, rough sobs muffled into his shoulder, disguised by the rhythm of her hips, the exquisite agony of her fingers digging into his arms. He goes still immediately and she seems almost not to notice, her body still slamming against his like this is a battle, like there is anything here that she can win. The shock and pain of seeing her like this make his knees feel weak and Clint sinks to the ground, taking her with him. She goes still then, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding on as her body shakes, like she might fly apart. 

“Tasha,” Clint whispers, almost a plea. “Tell me.”

She shakes her head and shivers again, and when she looks at him, he sees the darkness in her gaze that was there in Siberia, when she’d been ready to accept her own death in exchange for freedom from guilt. “I’m just—I’m too tired. I don’t want to be the one who made it out alive. Fuck.”

Clint pulls her closer as he slumps back against the wall. All of the things he wants to tell her feel selfish, confessions for his benefit instead of her own, and he’s fairly certain no part of him has ever been enough for her besides. Still he holds on until her breathing slows a little in the darkness, and the tragedies in both their lives hang suspended in this place beyond the edge of time. 

A few feet away, the ghosts in the picture frame leer at him like happy demons, wholly unaware of the future.

* * *

Clint gets one last moment of relative quiet with her while the others are figuring out how to operate Dr. Doom’s time platform. He catches Natasha’s eye and she follows him into a side room like she knows exactly what this is.

“I just,” Clint starts, when they’re mostly out of earshot of the others. He knows that they only have a few minutes if they’re lucky, but the words won’t come. He can’t figure out how to say all of the things he feels about her, all of the things he’s always felt, multiplied beyond measure by the fact that the world is gone. She’s the last precious thing he has to live for and she’s just volunteered for suicide.

“Don’t,” says Natasha and she lays her palm against the back of his neck, the impossible tenderness of the gesture cutting straight through him like a scythe.

He has to though, has to die knowing that he’s told her, that he isn’t so much a coward as to miss his final chance. So he ignores the word _don’t_ that is not quite a plea, steps closer to her and pushes back her hood like he’s facing down her demons. Her entire body jerks when he ghosts his fingertips along the side of her face hardened by new scars, strokes his fingers over her skin slowly, like an elegy.

“I love you,” he says finally, because that’s what it comes down to now, when everything is ending. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help it.”

“I know,” she answers, her voice surprisingly soft among all the jagged edges. “You’ve got awful timing, Hawkeye.”

She kisses him then and Clint tangles his fingers in her hair, closing his eyes like time might stand still if he just doesn’t look. He thinks about all of their years together and apart, the spaces where her life entwines with his, and wishes for just one more of each.

Moments later, he watches her step into the blinding white light of the platform, jump headlong into the apocalypse, and knows that he will never see her again.


End file.
